President Trump sought to reassure the public that the risk from coronavirus remained low as he made a rare visit to the White House briefing room in an effort to shore up economic markets and show that he was in charge.
He announced that Vice President Mike Pence would take control of the administration’s response and pushed back against warnings from a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the public should be prepared for the possibility of “severe” disruption to everyday life. It signaled an effort to stamp his own authority on a crisis marked by days of mixed messaging and plunging world markets.
“The risk to the American people remains very low,” he said, flanked by senior health officials. “We have the greatest experts, really, in the world, right here. We’re ready to adapt, and we’re ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.”
He left the door open to further sweeping action, such as imposing travel restrictions on countries such as South Korea, and said there were plans even for quarantining cities in the United States “should we need them.” But, his overall message was one of resilience and preparedness.
“I think the stock market will recover,” he said. “The economy is very strong with consumers, the strongest it’s ever been.”
Trump was speaking hours after a new case was confirmed in the U.S., bringing the total to 60, and as the Dow Jones followed its worst two-day fall in four years with a third day of losses.
Aides said the president returned to the White House determined to shake things up. He plunged officials into a feverish day of activity at the White House before he even arrived back from a trip to India, telling aides aboard Air Force One that he wanted to hold a press conference on Wednesday evening.
It was held in the briefing room at the president’s insistence, the first time he has appeared there since January last year. It is understood aides pressed for the briefing to be held before a small pool of journalists in the more manageable surroundings of the Roosevelt Room, but Trump, always mindful of TV production values, wanted the event to have a more energetic atmosphere.
His appearance reflected growing unease that, while the human impacts of coronavirus might be controlled, a clumsy response could spread uncertainty and fear.
“There’s confidence the virus can be contained, but no one is stupid enough to think that there won’t be implications for the economy,” said a campaign adviser.
That was exacerbated this week when Trump appeared to be at odds with his top health officials. Several times he played down the risk, saying the coronavirus would die out as the summer months approached. And, on Wednesday, he accused CNN and MSNBC of scaremongering, saying they were “doing everything possible to make [the coronavirus] look as bad as possible, including panicking markets.”
But critics said he was underestimating the health risk and potential impact on the U.S. economy while the White House funding request of $2.5 billion was inadequate to tackle the problem.
Their words appeared to be borne out in a briefing by Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who warned of possible “severe” disruptions to everyday life.
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore but rather a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” she said on Tuesday.
Veterans of White House messaging said they were baffled at the apparent lack of coordination.
“I don’t understand how the CDC could make an announcement as important as yesterday without it being tightly coordinated with the White House,” President George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer wrote.
Things began to turn around on Wednesday with the president’s return. The White House circulated talking points to Republicans, highlighting efforts to prevent the infection spreading, headlined “President Trump is leading an aggressive coronavirus response and preparation effort.”
It concluded: “Because of the actions taken by President Trump, the risk of infection for Americans remains low, and precious time has been gained to keep it that way.”
And officials in the briefing room paid tribute to the president’s leadership, even as they carefully hinted that the disease could spread further.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said, “The president’s early and decisive actions, including travel restrictions, have succeeded in buying us incredibly valuable time. This has helped us contain the spread of the virus, handle the cases that we have, and prepare for the possibility that we will need to mitigate a broader spread of infections within the United States.”
